trained

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of train.

   The coach trained the team through the entire winter season.

   He has trained as a paramedic since leaving college.

   Note

   Train is a regular verb, so one spelling does both jobs: she trained daily, she has trained for years. The passive belongs only to the transitive meanings, such as a recruit being trained, a vine trained along a wall, or a gun trained on a doorway. The intransitive ones (practicing, getting fit, proceeding in sequence) take have and cannot be made passive.

   The guns were trained on the gate.

   The vine was trained along the fence.

2. 2
   adjective

   Having undergone a course of training in some skill, profession, or activity.

   Only a trained electrician should rewire the main panel.

   The orchestra prefers to hire classically trained musicians.

   Similarqualified, skilled, certified, experienced

   Oppositeuntrained, unqualified, unskilled, amateur

   Note

   This adjective usually travels with a modifier in front of it: fully trained troops, a classically trained singer, a well-trained dog. Margery Allingham's constable in The China Governess (1963) is "fully trained and eager to help", which shows it working just as easily after the noun. It grades (more trained, most trained), but a modifier naming how or how far usually does the job more gracefully.

3. 3
   adjective

   Manipulated into a particular shape, pattern of growth, or habitual form through deliberate guidance.

   Trained against the south wall, the pear tree produced fruit within easy reach.

   The bonsai's trained branches traced an elegant downward cascade.

   Similarshaped

   Note

   Here the training is done to a thing rather than learned by it. A trained fruit tree has had its form decided for it by pruning and bending, the gardener's use of the verb train. It has acquired no skill, unlike the troops of the "skilled" meaning. What it carries is imposed shape or habit.

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